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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 12h

Wonderful news... This will finally prompt me to read (and listen to) another of the big books that have been sitting on my shelves for far too long! Hopefully I'll enjoy it just as much as "JR".

threepercentproblem.substack.com/p/next-seaso...

Next Season's Two Month Review Will Feature . . .

Sticking with English-language books about fascism for the moment.

threepercentproblem.substack.com

bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

Never thought that anything would prevent me from immediately starting "Shadow Ticket" now that I've received it. But when I finish John Barth's "The Sot-Weed Factor", I'll have to decide between turning to the new Pynchon or first reading one of my Jilly Coopers...!

bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

exposing a real conspiracy.' I can see why so many people have enjoyed it to the point of obsession over the years. Is already looking forward to reading the next one, and can easily imagine re-reading this with great pleasure. 6/6

bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell, I'm sure, and the authors - whom I've never heard of - have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be 5/6

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

authors. (Found some of the puns almost Joycean.) As one character says 'It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of 4/5

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

apple, had appeared in the eye. Polyphemus wanted very much to get into the cave." etc. It was a wonderfully enjoyable madcap read. Conspiracies and retellings of historical events jostle with a very wide range of literary references. Not just Lovecraft and Pynchon, but a host of other 3/4

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

Band who Burned a Million Pounds", but reading the original was quite a trip. Very much of its time (with sex scenes straight out of Playboy), "His tool pulled him to her as if it were iron and she were magnetized; he looked down and saw a little pearl of fluid, gleaming gold in the light from 2/3

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

Read Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson's "The Eye in the Pyramid". Has owned this since 2012, but finally moved it up my TBR pile due to the enthusiastic recommendations on @mappingthezone.bsky.social. Had encountered some of it in @johnhiggs.bsky.social' (excellent) "The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the 1/3

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

Middleton. However I accept it may simply be a term of art with which I'm unfamiliar. This book made a lot more sense the second time around, and is both a fine example of how to balance popular and academic writing; and a loveletter to the delights of re-reading a beloved book. 6/6

bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

in the unspooling of that mortal inevitability.' Was unsure about the reference to the ' "Revenger's Tragedy" section of The Crying of Lot 49'. Knows that it is a revenge tragedy, but I always think of it as "The Courier's Tragedy" section, rather than specifically linking it solely to Tourneur/ 5/6

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

the sentiment 'Here it seems worth noting that the languages devised in such jubilant scenes to nothing - nothing - to obviate the blank and irrefutable fact that the people we love will die and that our loving them, with whatever devotion and whatever articulacy, makes no difference whatsoever 4/5

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

changing historical emphasis over the years have added greatly to my appreciation (and which could easily be updated to 2025!) Enjoyed wrestling with terminology that I used to encounter regularly, but has been missing recently from my reading diet. On a non-literary note I agreed strongly with 3/4

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

judgement about the literary criticism. I told myself I would re-read it when I next read the text, but never thought it would take over 4 years! Was prompted to re-read this by its mentions/the author's appearance on the Two Month Review podcast. Is very glad that I did, as the snapshots of 2/3

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 1d

Re-read Peter Coviello's "Vineland Re-read". I originally read this back in July 2021 many years after I'd last read "Vineland". At the time I liked the premise/format, personal anecdotes and the helpful paragraphs of the original text. But my memories of the novel were too hazy to make any 1/3

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Reposted

M.A.Orthofer @maorthofer.bsky.social · 7d

Not exactly surprised by Merve Emre's response to the question: "Where and When Do You Read ?" but: respect/admiration/envy. An ideal I only sometimes manage to approach. (Via @sansip.bsky.social ) linkst.thecut.com/view/6356a9c...

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 7d

praise for the bizarre semi-documentary 'The Cardinal and the Corpse' which I'd read about in several places but never seen before last night. 7/7

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 7d

standard sequence of events seems to have been a hot bath, a meal, and later on a map of Ireland if the mood was right.' This really is an amazing book which had me picking texts as diverse as "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and "The Man Who Was Private Widdle" from my shelves. Also echoes the 6/7

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 7d

'who tour England ceaselessly like lady takes on the Ancient Mariner, bringing none of the poetry and all of the guilt' or prostitutes who 'pound locked cars like gibbons at Longleat'. Relied on the excellent @misterslang.bsky.social's invaluable website to explicate the final phrase in 'The 5/7

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 7d

transported by express' from "Under the Volcano" or "Goblin Market"'s 'Morns that pass by, fair eves that fly') and things like or 'the arcade, in which the clairvoyante Olandah once suffered Paul Theroux' alluding to "The Kingdom by the Sea". Particularly enjoyed many of the similes: comedians 4/7

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 7d

age' but I hope that's where the resemblance ends! Some of my favourite lines I can't (won't) quote on here, but 'enough corpses to fill a knocking-shop for necrophiles' belongs in a certain type of novel. Liked the casual literary references dropped without elaboration (e.g. 'A corpse will be 3/7

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 7d

remembered. Isn't normally a non-fiction fan but this sui generis work has a bit of everything I like (sober literary analysis, seedy underbellies, teasing authorial revelations etc.) Has also 'never managed to part with money spontaneously without feeling sad, and the pang has sharpened with 2/7

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 7d

Re-read David Seabrook's "All the Devil are Here". If someone had told me that I would enjoy a second @backlisted.bsky.social episode on a title they'd already covered I wouldn't have believed them. (I'd have been wrong). This was ever better (as well as stranger and more disturbing) than I 1/7

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Reposted

Naomi Colvin @auerfeld.bsky.social · 8d

Aexander Baron! David Seabrook! Huge dangerous piles of books! This is an absolutely top draw recommendation from @backlisted.bsky.social

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7n7...

The Cardinal & The Corpse (1992, Documentary / Drama, Iain Sinclair & Chris Petit)

YouTube video by ppotter

www.youtube.com

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bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 9d

will have to wait until I've seen the movie that prompted this flurry of online interest. But right now I'm firmly in the camp of people who think there is much much more to this book than many Pynchon fans seem to believe. 4/4

bookluvvr.bsky.social @bookluvvr.bsky.social · 9d

of chapters definitely helped me make links to things in the final one what I would have missed otherwise (an experience which partially resembled "Ulysses"). Despite David Foster Wallace's famous putdown, I noticed several prefigurations of aspects of "Infinite Jest". Suspects my final thoughts 3/4

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